I do not know if there is an adequate age for an iPhone, but I think most may agree that there should be different intelligent and online telephone experiences based on age, and that is really the philosophy behind most of the controls of digital parents, including the quite bulky that are in the Apple ecosystem. Now, with iOS 26, and other platform updates, on the horizon, that system is configured for a series of small but important updates.
I have seen most of them in action and, in general, I think these can only be the series of privacy and security controls to parents and, even, even adolescents and children have been looking for.
For Apple’s credit, it has been adding and improving its parental control ecosystem for years. So much so that many parents can only scratch the surface of their vast control platform.
It is worth noting that if you identify a new device such as an iPhone or iPad as a child or adolescent, many of the controls, such as web content restrictions, application restrictions (classified applications only 4 more), screen distance alerts and messaging filters that automatically blur the mischievous bits, will function automatically.
However, there are key security changes that you can enable when Apple publishes public versions of its updates of the operating system for iPhone, iPad and Mac.
The era of suitability
The iPone and the iPad of your child are already quite good, according to the parents’ control configuration, by administering their child’s access to appropriate applications for age, but Apple goes beyond iOS26, iPados26 and Macos 26 (essentially any platform that is part of their family plan and that can access the App Store).
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The appropriate experiences for age seem designed to help prevent application developers from delivering inadvertently contained in the application to their children and adolescents. It is enabled through a series of simple screen indications that allow it to supply the age (but not the date of birth) of their children to developers.
Using this information, developers can ensure that, regardless of what applications, allow them to download, their applications only deliver content that aligns with the child’s age.
I appreciate that there is another control level: parents can choose whether the age range is “always” shared, if developers have to “ask first”, or if it is “never” shared. I think I like the second option more because it is the only one that allows the child to choose if he wants his age range to be shared with the developers.
Receive the right message
Once your child has an iPhone and a phone number, it is almost guaranteed that predators will be attacked. There is a simple configuration in iOS at this time that allows you to automatically block the unknown numbers (filter unknown semiters in configuration/apps/messages). However, iOS 26 will take these protections beyond.
With iOS 26, your child will not be able to add anyone to their contacts and message lists.
If your child wants to add a studio friend to messaging on your iPhone or iPad, you will see a new emerging window that will allow them to “ask a father or guardian to approve this person.”
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If the child or adolescent selects the emerging window, a previously populated message appears where you can complete the details of the friend and add a message that explains who the person is. Parents receive a notification sensitive to time on their devices with details and the message. They can choose to add the contact, decline or select “not now.”
Once the friend is added, his son or teenager will receive a message that tells them that he can call or send a message to the new contact. Of course, it could make sense to pause in the middle of this process to chat in person with your child and make sure that the “studio friend” is really just another child.
Less limited applications
The parental Apple controls make it quite easy to establish time limits and even exclude the views of the view so that when your child looks for in the application store, they will not even see those applications not open in the store in the application store.
However, Apple seems to have recognized that some children are, well, cunning.
When it establishes time limit controls at the application level or even worldwide, your child can request more time with the application. Approveing the extension requires the parents’ access code, which can enter remotely from their best iPhone or best iPad, or in person they are sitting next to their child. If the child has been superpticly observing the password code and memorized it, they could be granting more screen time.
With this small small but useful update, parents will receive notifications every time their access code is used.
Make the exception
Parents can choose which applications their children can access, but soon there will be a new button at the top of the application description pages that will offer the ability to request an exception.
That application goes to parents who can grant permission, which immediately turns on the “obtain” option in an application.
This can be useful when, for example, your child has a project where some YouTube research will be useful. However, when the project is carried out, it can revoke the exception with the same speed, and then not only disappears in the App Store, but the application also disappears from your child’s device.
This is a control level that I can support.
Tell us how your child’s screen time manages in the comments below.
